He UN Secretary General warned on Monday that the Israel’s military offensive announced in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, it would be “death warrant” for humanitarian aid programs in the Palestinian territory, shortly after the Israeli army announced a plan to “evacuate” civilians.
The large-scale offensive against Rafah “Not only would it be terrifying for the more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltered there, but it would mark the death knell for our aid programs,” warned Antonio Guterres at the opening of the 55th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Where is Rafah located?
Rafah, at the southern end of the Strip, next to Egypt’s closed border, it is eThe only access for humanitarian aid, which remains “totally insufficient” for the Palestinian territory, the person in charge insisted. Much of the international community, including the United States, Israel’s main ally, tries to dissuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from entering Rafahwhere, according to the UN, around 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded together, almost all of them displaced.
But the Israeli leader defends his ground operation in what is, in his opinion, the “last bastion” of the Islamist movement. “It has to be done because total victory is our goal and total victory is within reach,” he said Sunday in an interview with the US network CBS.
The Israeli army’s plan
The Israeli army presented on Mondays “a plan to evacuate civilians from combat areas in the Gaza Strip, along with an operational plan”according to Netanyahu’s office. No details were released regarding this evacuation.But Netanyahu told CBS the day before that there was “place” for civilians “in the north of Rafah, in the areas where we ended the fighting.”
But those sectors are still under Israeli bombardment. A correspondent of the AFP reported several night attacks in Rafah, Khan Yunis, a few kilometers north of Rafah, and Zeitun, in the north of the enclave.
He Hamas Ministry of Healthwho has ruled Gaza since 2007, announced on Monday that 92 Palestinians were killed in those bombings.
The beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas
The war broke out on October 7 when Islamist militants killed around 1,160 peoplemostly civilians, in southern Israel, according to a report by the AFP based on Israeli data. They also kidnapped about 250 people, of whom 130 are still held in the enclave, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel vows to “annihilate” Hamas and launched a military offensive against the enclave that has already left 29,782 dead, especially women and minors, according to the latest balance sheet by the Islamist group’s government. In Occupied West Bankwhere violence has spiked since October 7, The Palestinian Authority government presented its resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas, criticized for his “impotence” in the face of Israeli bombings in the Strip and the worsening of the situation in the territory it controls.
The situation in the Gaza Strip
The situation in the Gaza Strip it does not stop getting worse and 2.2 million people, the vast majority of the populationthey face “mass famine”, according to the UN. The bBombings do not stop and humanitarian aid enters in dribs and drabs through the Rafah crossingand depends on the approval of Israel, which imposed a total siege on the enclave.
The Netanyahu’s office indicated on Monday that the military had also approved an aid delivery plan “which will prevent looting.” Several Palestinians assured the AFP who were forced to eat leaves and animal feed to survive, since the few convoys that manage to reach the north are looted by the population.
“We are starving,” says Abdullah al Aqra, 40, a refugee in western Gaza City after fleeing Beit Lahia further north.
What happens in politics
At the diplomatic level, rRepresentatives of Egypt, Qatar, the United States and Israel and Hamas resumed on Sunday in Doha negotiations for a truce, which will be followed by “meetings in Cairo”, according to the channel AlQahera Newsclose to the Egyptian intelligence services. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan assured that, at a meeting in Paris, rIsraeli, American, Egyptian and Qatari representatives “reached an understanding” on “the basic contours” of a hostage agreement for “a temporary ceasefire.”
According to a source from Hamas, listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel and the European Union, the plan contains a six-week truce and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, as well as the entry of a large amount of humanitarian aid.
Tensions between Israel and Lebanon
The War also fueled tensions on the border between Israel and Lebanon, where there are daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement, an ally of Hamas. But this Mondaythe Israeli army bombed targets of the Shiite group in the east of the countrymuch more in the interior of the territory.
Hezbollah announced shortly after that it fired 60 rockets at an Israeli military base in response. on the occupied Golan Plateau.
Source: Ambito
